Four hundred and ninety-six years ago, Martin Luther nailed his famous 95 theses to the castle church in Wittenberg, Germany.

Ever since that time, the church has been in a state of constant reformation. The question is, “Is that reformation a good thing?”

When Martin Luther nailed those 95 theses to that door, it really was nothing unusual or out of the ordinary. It was a normal and well-established way for an academic to call for a debate.

Wittenberg was a center for learning, and it was common for professors, students, and the like to post a series of contentions (arguments) in order to call for a debate on those items.

Have we lost our ability to debate? Have we lost our ability to make well-researched and learned arguments? I think we have.

I think the reason for that is because of what Luther utilized for printing his books and his translation of the Bible into German in the years after the presentation of the 95 Theses.

The Guttenberg press was invented in 1450, just a few years before Luther began his work. This allowed people the opportunity to do something never before available — print books — a lot of books. The explosion of this type of information media created a frenzy of learning, sharing of information and intellectual growth that had never before been experienced on the Earth.

At the same time, it came with a price. That prices was the slow progression downward of the ability to think. Original thought and creative thinking began, arguably, a downward trend as no longer did you need to examine and determine, but now you needed to be able to read and comprehend.

As times have changed and progressed to the mass media frenzy that is our digital world, we no longer read and comprehend, but we now must locate and analyze the information before us. The skill lost in time remains the ability to create a logical argument based on the facts.

In the church, this is expounded on with the belief that the Scriptures can be interpreted. In other words, that they are able to be read in such a way so as meaning is identified by the reader and not the author.

This idea is perpetuated by our media and Internet frenzy. Just look at the number of TV shows that will pop up each year around Christmas or Easter with a new assertion of finding the “real” story of Christ. Then, people go to the sacred intellectual resource of “Google” to find out how true something is. Wikipedia becomes that ending argument of all things “true” and what the Scriptures have said for more 2,000 year no longer is reliable.

Then, forbid us to actually disagree with someone’s assessment of their digital findings. We have lost the skill of arguing because we have lost the skill to think.

Page 2 of 2 - There is hope. Do not let my thoughts from this page enlighten you with the power to tell your teacher at school that we should not analyze information. Rather, we should determine accuracy through discovery.

On the other hand, let it be a motivation for you to study. Study the things you read. Open your thoughts to more than your perceptions. Then, argue your point to someone who has an opposing view.

Do not just regurgitate information from a source just because you like it or because it sits well with your cultural perspective.

Back to the Scriptures. The Reformation was not about opening the Scriptures up to interpretation of the reader and dividing the church up into denominations. It was about the Truth. The Truth in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Truth in the Words of Scripture.

In John 14:6 Jesus says, “I am the way, and the TRUTH, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.